


Impossible

by theclockiscomplete



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Approximately canon levels of romance, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, it is a good tag, whouffaldi, yes I borrowed that tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 16:06:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5632678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theclockiscomplete/pseuds/theclockiscomplete
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of those missions we don't often get to see: one that fails. A mission that goes horribly wrong and results in major damage they almost don't come back from, physically, that makes them think about the cost of the inevitable emotional pain that will come from losing each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Impossible

**Author's Note:**

> My new year's resolution is to write 500 words a day. Not all of them are fanfictions, and not all of them that are will make to full-fledged works. Out of those, not all of them will be Whouffaldi-- I've got a few dorks in the Star Wars fandom that I gotta consider, too. But all in all, it's probably safe to assume that the frequency with which horribly-titled fics appear under my name will probably increase slightly. I hope you are all well!

“Doctor? Doctor, can you hear me?”

 

The Doctor groaned, but the sound didn’t reach his lips. It felt like every alarm in his body was going off simultaneously, and the din in his head was overwhelming. He focused in on Clara’s voice above him and did everything he could to draw towards it. Finally, he was able to crack open his eyes. Clara’s worried face swam before him, all eyes and panic. He tried to say her name, but only succeeded in a pathetic wheeze. Her hand moved into his field of vision and a distant part of him was dismayed to see it covered in blood. Her hand hovered over his mouth, shushing him gently.

 

“Don’t try to talk.” There was profound relief in her shaky voice, and it was only now that he could hear the gunfire and flames outside...wherever they were. A tent, going by the pattern of the flames he could see through its fabric. He concentrated his thoughts on the hand pressed to his temple and projected to her a question. “You took an energy blast to the chest,” she said, and now he saw that her right arm hung uselessly at her side. Her hair was wild and her clothes were singed. “Everyone is out fighting,” she said before he could even formulate his next question. “It’s just us. I’ve called the TARDIS, but I don’t know if she heard me.” Her voice cracked and she looked away, but he could not tell if her expression wavered in the firelight. He lifted a hand-- nope, try the other one-- and covered hers. He closed his eyes again, embracing Clara’s resulting panic as it crashed into his mind, and wished them...elsewhere. He heard the wheezing of his TARDIS around him, saw the flickering red behind his eyes steady, and the strange sensation of the packed dirt beneath him giving way to solid flooring. 

 

He worked his eyes open again, and other circumstances might have laughed outright at the mixture of relief, confusion, and worry on Clara’s face. Instead he made a noise and tried to project an image. Her thumb stroked his cheek and her face was briefly the expression he’d come to categorize as you-are-daft-but-I-am-fond-of-you. “I know where it is,” she said aloud. The item in question was close enough that Clara could reach it with her good hand, and she flicked the switch before running it over his chest. “Says a lot about us, doesn’t it?” She was talking as much to herself as she was to him now, and it must be bad because usually as soon as the flesh-knitter came out she relaxed, but she looked as tense as ever as she elaborated. “Knowing where the pre-emergency kits are, that is.” Some of the alarms in his head began to waver-- he spared a thought to wondering if that was good or bad. “We spend a lot of time patching each other up, it seems.” Neither of them spoke of the failure-- the burning, the dying, the loss. There was a curious tugging in the vicinity of the Doctor’s ribs, and then suddenly the pain that had lanced from his throat to his spine with every breath began to ease. He heard a sizzle and a yelp from Clara’s direction, and then a clunk as she tossed the knitter down the shaft to be repaired. “I think one heart is still out,” she said, “but you we have to get you to the medbay. Can you walk?” 

 

He tried his voice. “No.” It came out a rasp, but he was thankful that the air was going where it was meant to now. That was something. Clara sat back on her knees and blew a strand of hair out of her face. It was almost normal for a moment. 

 

“Alright,” she said. “We’ve got to do this the hard way then.” The Doctor’s brow furrowed. He winced as the action revealed the presence of another cut along his forehead. “I’m going to drag you,” she elaborated. There were bags under her eyes. How long had he been out? “The door is just over there, thanks to the TARDIS, but it’s still about ten meters. I’m sorry in advance,” she said, grabbing his ankle in her good-- and surprisingly strong-- hand. The Doctor groaned and shut his eyes.

 

Fifteen minutes of pain and swearing found them finally at the door, which opened at Clara’s touch to reveal what looked at first glance like the edge of a swimming pool. Clara looked over her shoulder at the Doctor. “Is this the right room?”

 

“Med-bath,” he managed. “Healing fluid.” 

 

She didn’t bat an eye. “Can you breathe in it?” He nodded. Without another word, Clara tugged him the last few feet to the edge and with a final explosion of pain, she rolled him in. 

 

They drifted in the bactum for a long time, hands joined and breathing matched. The damaged muscles in their bodies itched as they healed, holes closing and burns soothing. He’d forgotten this room was even here, in truth. Bactum was one of the most efficient healers known to any sentient species, but it also had a nasty habit of forming a quick resistance. Still, he thought as he glanced over at Clara, he’d absolutely no intention of ever putting her in a position to need it again. Unbidden, the weight and enormity of their failure to rescue the village came crashing onto him. This, he knew, bactum could not heal. He felt Clara’s hand tighten around his.

 

_ We were never meant to succeed, _ she thought to him.

 

He leaned into the comfort and empathy her words brought to him, his hearts aching.  _ That doesn’t normally stop us. _

 

Silence, then:  _ I grieve them too. But that is nothing compared to what I felt when you went down beside me with a hole ripped through you. Nothing, Doctor, do you understand? _

 

He wanted to deflect here, felt the words rising in him and knew she could too. But he did know, and he knew that in her place he would have felt the same. In the end, he supposed, grief was not a competition. It was too subjective. An entire village, or Clara? An entire planet, or Clara? The universe…? The imagining of that inevitable choice squeezed his working heart, and he could not follow the train of thought. So he held Clara’s hand a little tighter, and for just a moment, the two of them let go of the notions of good and bad and what made them so and they simply ached for what they had lost and rejoiced in each other’s safety.

 

Clara got them into and out of the shower without incident, and then, yawning hugely, maneuvered them into her TARDIS bedroom for a long and much-needed nap. He sat on the edge of her bed, patiently wrapped in his towel and hers perched on his head as she pawed through her drawers, eventually coming up with two pair of flannel trousers and two jumpers-- both of which he recognized. “Oi,” he said, and was pleased to note that his voice sounded almost completely normal now. “Those are mine.” Clara looked him in the eye and pulled one of the jumpers-- the holey one-- over her head.

 

“Come get it,” she said when her head popped out of the top hole, and then she swayed unsteadily. The Doctor ignored the ache of moving too quickly and leaped to balance her. “M’okay,” she murmured against his chest as she struggled to pull on the pants. Then, with a loopy sleep-smile: “Heart number one is back on board.” She let him guide her under the duvet and pull it up to her chin, and if she was conscious when she snuggled against him once he was dressed and beside her, she didn’t let on. 

 

The Doctor reflected on the day, even as his mind spiraled into a much-needed healing sleep and his breathing slowed, and he thought of Clara’s words. “We were never meant to succeed.” He supposed he’d known that going in, but the impossible wasn’t something he was accustomed to losing to. And when it came to Clara, he thought, he never would. The Doctor wrapped his arms around the gravity that was Clara and within minutes, he was asleep.


End file.
